


languages, mac & cheese, and love

by explodingsnapple



Series: Cheers to the 99th Precinct! [7]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Heart-to-Heart, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 17:42:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20139427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/explodingsnapple/pseuds/explodingsnapple
Summary: In the span of a second, she opens her mouth ever-so-slightly to reply, her left elbow twitches, she purses her lips, and then she finally responds to Rosa, but in English.Or, Jake notices something strange.





	languages, mac & cheese, and love

The day begins as any other typical day would for Jake and Amy. They come to work together and sit through the morning briefing. Then, she has her daily meeting with Captain Holt, and he gets the latest batch of paperwork that he needs to fix from Terry. 

To Jake’s surprise, however, instead of going down to the 1st Floor afterward, Amy takes a seat at her old desk opposite his. “I need to see the details of the Morris case; Holt wants my squad patrolling that area today, and they need to know what to look out for,” she explains. Jake nods and starts rummaging through his desk drawers for the relevant file. _ Where did he put it? _

Suddenly, Jake hears a growl of irritation near them. Soon after, the unmistakable _thud_ of Rosa slamming her phone down echoes through the bullpen. “Rosa, what’s wrong?” Amy asks. 

Rosa scowls and replies, “My _sister_…_, _” and that’s all Jake can understand, because she proceeds to vent her frustrations in a torrent of Spanish that, despite the classes he’s been taking, is too fast for him to follow. Besides, he’s a bit preoccupied with trying to find the Morris paperwork.

Jake finally locates the file just as Rosa finishes ranting. When he emerges from under his desk, he notices Amy doing something strange: in the span of a second, she opens her mouth ever-so-slightly to reply, her left elbow twitches, she purses her lips, and then she finally responds to Rosa, but in English. It’s a small sequence of events, almost imperceptible unless you’re watching carefully (which he is; who _wouldn’t_ want to stare at their gorgeous wife?), but Jake is sure he didn’t imagine it. It was almost as if she made a conscious decision to respond in English. _But why? _

Amy and Rosa’s chatter fades to the background around him as he tries to make sense of what Amy just did. The conversation didn’t directly involve him, so there was no need to switch languages, and he’s heard her talk in Spanish – or “Spanglish,” really, but still – whenever the two of them were babysitting her younger nieces and nephews. Her parents speak Spanish, and so do her brothers, as far as he’s aware. There should be no reason for her to hesitate like she did, _especially _in front of him and Rosa.

And that’s when it hits him. He’s never actually _heard_ her speak Spanish in front of people older than the age of five, even if others were doing so. Around her parents, he always assumed it was because she didn’t want him to feel left out (after all, Victor and Camila weren’t exactly subtle about their disapproval of him), but there might be a deeper reason. 

“Jake!” Amy says abruptly, shaking him out of his thoughts. “Did you find the file?”

“Oh yeah, it’s right here,” he says, handing it over. Amy leaves soon after to give her squad their assignments and all thoughts of the conversation in Jake’s head disappear as he turns back to focus on his enormous amounts of paperwork.

* * *

“Hey, babe, I think there’s a _ Harry Potter _ Movie Marathon tonight on HBO; let’s watch it,” Jake calls from the couch. 

“Yeah, go ahead and put it on. I’m just finishing up dinner,” Amy replies from the kitchen. Jake starts scrolling through the channels (to kill time so he doesn’t have to start it without Amy) and listens to her rummaging around the cabinets. 

“Jake?”

“Yeah?”

“How much milk do you typically put in Mac & Cheese? Like, should seven cups be okay?”

Jake furrows his eyebrows. While both of their cooking skills have vastly improved since they started dating (and realized that their food now has the potential to kill more than one person), he’s not entirely sure if seven cups are too much or too little. “I’m not sure, Ames; maybe check Google?” he says, deciding to play it safe. 

“_Ugh,_ I’m trying to make this special version my mom used to make when I was a kid, so it won’t be online, and I can’t read her handwriting on the paper she gave me. I’ll just call her.”

Jake starts scrolling through Facebook and Amy calls her mother. A few minutes later, he hears Camila pick up the phone.

“Hi Mom, you’re on speaker,” Amy says. Jake looks up to see his wife tossing a salad with her left hand and stirring the pot on the stove with her right. He shakes his head and gets up to go help her with the salad, but she motions for him to sit back down. _ She’s the only person in the world who enjoys multitasking,_ Jake thinks, smiling.

“I’m trying to make that special Mac & Cheese you used to make for our birthd – yes, I’m aware that David used to help, but you still did most of the cooking – anyway, I was wondering, how much milk do you use?” 

“Well, it depends on how much cheese you put in it,” comes Camila’s slightly muffled response. “But in general…” She starts giving instructions to her daughter in Spanish, and Jake loses track of the conversation, only noticing Amy intermittently saying things like, “Okay,” “Wait, one second,” and, on one occasion, “What do you mean, ‘I wasn’t supposed to add sugar?’” 

About ten minutes later, Amy emerges and gives Jake a bowl of food, which he eyes wearily – he’s not sure if she managed to get rid of the sugar or not. Amy busies herself with organizing their bookshelf, her phone resting on a nearby chair and still on speaker.

From the smattering of words that Jake can hear and understand, Camila is telling Amy something about her father’s new hat. Amy’s responses of “I would love to meet him!” and “Does he like chocolate?” don’t seem to fit that situation, though, so Jake stops trying to figure out what they’re saying and goes back to browsing through his various social media feeds.

When her mother finally hangs up, Amy collapses on the couch next to him. “Oh my god, my mom will _not _stop talking every time I call her! I should have just asked David for help or something,” she says, although there’s a twinkle in her eye.

Jake mock-gasps. “And give him the satisfaction of being a better cook than you? You wouldn’t dare!” he says teasingly, earning him a whack to the shoulder. “Plus, we both know you miss her and just don’t want to admit it,” he says, wrapping an arm around her.

“Yeah, right,” Amy replies, rolling her eyes but smiling as she leans into his shoulder. 

Jake reaches for the TV remote and is about to turn the movie on when something occurs to him.

“Hey, I have a question,” Jake says. Only after the words leave his mouth does he realize that what he’s about to say is _probably_ not the most sensitive of things to ask. But it’s too late.

“Yeah, what’s up?” Amy asks. 

“Oh, no, it’s nothing. Never mind,” he says, his face reddening.

“No, tell me,” Amy insists, sitting up and staring at him now.

“I was just, um, wondering why you only speak to your parents in English? Like, not that it’s any of my business or anything, but I noticed it this morning, too, like when you and Rosa were talking? It almost seemed like you were about to reply in Spanish, then changed your mind last-minute. Anyway, sorry, I was just curious,” Jake rambles, running a hand through his hair. 

A beat passes, then another, then another. There’s an uneasy feeling in the air that settles around them like a heavy cloud, and Jake desperately wishes he could turn the clock back two minutes and pretend this never happened.

“I was really, really shy as a kid,” Amy says finally, and Jake lets out a small sigh of relief. _ She’s not mad._ Amy laughs. 

“Anyway, I could speak English fluently, but I was so used to hearing Spanish from adults – you know, my parents – that the language change at school freaked me out even more. My preschool teachers just assumed that I wasn’t fluent, though, and told my parents, who thought that maybe I just wasn’t confident enough to use English. So they started making me speak it all the time. And pretty soon, I just, um, forgot Spanish.” Amy pauses.

Jake wants to say something, but he’s not completely sure what would be appropriate. After all, the fact that she’s only telling him this now indicates that it hasn’t had a huge impact on her life, but at the same time, he can tell that she’s still upset about it. Luckily for him, Amy seems to have a lot more to say.

“I mean, I can understand it, one-hundred percent, but speaking to people who I _know _are more fluent than I am is – well, it’s harder than it sounds. Even though a lot my family members who were raised here speak with atrocious accents, so I wouldn’t be _too_ far behind, it’s like my tongue just doesn’t want to take that extra step.

“And my parents, I mean, they weren’t super bothered by it, especially since I could still understand the language. Also, to them, Spanish is just for family, and English is for everyone else. So they just don’t get it. And it’s embarrassing, sometimes, to bring that stuff up to your parents too. I was afraid that they would think that _they _messed up somehow. So they never _truly_ knew how important this was to me.

“Anyway, sometimes, my brain still does that stereotypical bilingual thing where I think in one language and have to switch to the other, except it does that even when I _don’t _have to switch to the other. It does it _all the time._ Only around kids who can barely talk at all does it relax, and even then, only if no one else can overhear me. 

“So, that’s the reason,” Amy finishes, her ears cheeks slightly red from all the talking. She looks at Jake expectantly.

Jake _really_ doesn’t know what to respond now, so instead, he pulls her closer and presses a kiss to her temple. “I’m sorry I made you say all that,” he murmurs.

“No, it’s okay. It’s refreshing to finally talk to someone who just listens and doesn’t try to shove their opinions down my throat,” Amy says. “Like, don’t you think I would have taken Spanish in school if I had the opportunity? It’s not _ my _ fault that French was the only class that fit my schedule.”

When she says that, Jake gets an idea. He looks at her for a second longer than what would be considered normal, contemplating whether or not to voice his thoughts, and she raises her eyebrows.

“Okay, I _ know _ you just said you didn’t want advice but, um, if, hypothetically, I was secretly taking Spanish lessons so I could understand what your parents are saying behind my back, and, hypothetically, there’s an open spot in this class, would it be something you were interested in?” he blurts.

“Hypothetically?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.” She smiles at him. “Yeah, I would.” 

“Cool,” Jake returns her grin. “Hey, by the way, what was your mom talking about on the phone? Who are we buying chocolates for? And could we buy some for ourselves?”

“Oh, my brother and his husband just adopted a three-year-old boy, and they’re staying with my mom at the moment, so she wanted to know if we wanted to come to see him,” Amy says.

“Ames, what kind of question is ‘does he like chocolates?’ _All _kids like chocolates,” Jake exclaims. 

“I didn’t at his age. Also, nice try, but we aren’t buying any for the house until you go to the dentist,” Amy replies, and laughs when Jake pretends to pout. “Now, turn the TV on and hand me my bowl. All this talking has made me hungry.”

Jake happily complies.

**Author's Note:**

> first of all, the whole premise of this fic is based on my own experiences/conversations and Melissa Fumero's Unfiltered interview. 
> 
> as far as how canon-compliant this is (if any of you care), the b99 cast did a Q&A on Instagram a while ago and one of the questions was whether or not we'll get to see Amy and Rosa speak in Spanish to each other. Stephanie Beatriz responded (in Spanish, so this is my friend's translation of it) that while she's fluent, Melissa isn't super confident with it, so it's not super likely. 
> 
> anyway, thank you guys for reading!!


End file.
